NVMe SSD not found when installing

Forza

@Kennet You need to boot in UEFI mode. And secondly, you must make sure your nvme is using 512e insted of 4kn sector size. You can use nvme-cli command to check sector size.

Kennet

Hi @Forza

Thanks for the answer.
UEFI is enabled in the BIOS and when I boot the PC the CD drive is listed under UEFI boot options. So it must be using UEFI.
To run the nvme-cli command I tied to run a Debian Live CD and install nvme-cli with "sudo apt-get install nvme-cli".
It installs but when I run "sudo nvme-cli list" the list is empty.
Any other way to tell if the drive is using 4kn sector size ?

/Kennet

Forza

That is odd. Try another bootable linux distro like Fedora that has newer kernels and tools?

❯ nvme list
Node                  Generic               SN                   Model                                    Namespace  Usage                      Format           FW Rev
--------------------- --------------------- -------------------- ---------------------------------------- ---------- -------------------------- ---------------- --------
/dev/nvme0n1          /dev/ng0n1            123456789012         WD_BLACK SN850X HS 2000GB                0x1          2.00  TB /   2.00  TB      4 KiB +  0 B   620331WD

I'd guess that most SD Samsung SSD's are 512e unless the user changes it specifically. But the fact that it is not listed when you boot a live USB is a problem. Not sure why that would be. Perhaps some other BIOS setting is available? On my servers I can opt to use UEFI firmware from the NVME device or use the generic build-in firmware.

EDIT: Are you using too many PCIe devices? If not enough lanes are available it could be that the nvme device is not found. Another issue can be with PCIe-nvme adapters that required bifurbication..

TeddyAstie

Hello,

Make sure Intel VMD is disabled (this is the hardware RAID feature of Intel, and it doesn't currently work on XCP-ng; you probably don't need it unless you are looking to make a RAID). We found some modern platforms enabling by default (which also causes issues with Windows).

DustinB

@TeddyAstie said in NVMe SSD not found when installing:

Hello,

Make sure Intel VMD is disabled (this is the hardware RAID feature of Intel, and it doesn't currently work on XCP-ng; you probably don't need it unless you are looking to make a RAID). We found some modern platforms enabling by default (which also causes issues with Windows).

Is VMD actually hardware raid or is it some bastardization of Hardware Raid?

olivierlambert

@DustinB Last time I checked, VMD is a shitty half-baked soft/hard RAID.

Forza

@olivierlambert said in NVMe SSD not found when installing:

@DustinB Last time I checked, VMD is a shitting half-baked soft/hard RAID.

Indeed. The firmware hides pci devices behind this vmd thing. It is absolutely unstable and unfixable.

We have been using software raid1 for years on Intel hardware for industrial focused computers. However since Intel switched to VMD we started to get very odd problems like blue screens (windows) and spontaneous reboots and hard lockups where the raid volume wouldn't come back unless we did full power cycle. After some months we found a reproducer which we sent to our vendor, who in turn were able to reproduce it on different motherboards of different manufacturers with different chipsets supporting VMD. Until today we have not found a fix.

DustinB

@olivierlambert said in NVMe SSD not found when installing:

@DustinB Last time I checked, VMD is a shitty half-baked soft/hard RAID.

@Forza said in NVMe SSD not found when installing:

@olivierlambert said in NVMe SSD not found when installing:

@DustinB Last time I checked, VMD is a shitting half-baked soft/hard RAID.

Indeed. The firmware hides pci devices behind this vmd thing. It is absolutely unstable and unfixable.

Good to know, will steer well clear of it.

DustinB

@Forza said in NVMe SSD not found when installing:

We have been using software raid1 for years on Intel hardware for industrial focused computers. However since Intel switched to VMD we started to get very odd problems like blue screens (windows) and spontaneous reboots and hard lockups where the raid volume wouldn't come back unless we did full power cycle. After some months we found a reproducer which we sent to our vendor, who in turn were able to reproduce it on different motherboards of different manufacturers with different chipsets supporting VMD. Until today we have not found a fix.

Yeah this doesn't sound any different from every fakeRAID that has ever existed... it's doing all of the work on the motherboard, writing little to disk and hoping for the best.

Kennet

@TeddyAstie Thanks this did the trick.

olivierlambert

Excellent news!